From Hoarding to Minimalism

About 10 years ago, I was happily married and celebrating my third or fourth anniversary in our home watching an episode of the show "Hoarders". There were lots of jokes made by viewers of the show such as "Whenever I feel like I have too much or I shouldn't go shopping, I just watch an episode of Hoarders and I feel fine again." I admit I was doing just that and it was no joke, it worked like a charm. If someone criticized my shopping outings or spending habits, I'd watch another episode of "Hoarders" and since my home didn't look like theirs, I was fine. If someone criticized me for one of my collection obsessions (craft supplies, dolls, shoes, dvds), I'd simply watch another episode of "Hoarders" and since my home didn't smell of dead cats and rats and I didn't have to climb over a mountain of dvds to get to the bathroom, I was fine. There was no way I was overspending or overcollecting or overshopping. Right?

Wrong. While CHD (Compulsive Hoarding Disorder) is an extreme version of Hoarding and the homes shown in the show "Hoarders" are of those diagnosed people, there are plenty of people without CHD who are indeed still hoarders -- and I was one of them. I had no idea. Yes, I had about twenty pairs of shoes and I mostly wore only two pairs. It looked normal, nice and neat with all the shoes tucked into their pockets and hanging from the closet door. It's not that twenty pairs of shoes made me a hoarder. It's that I couldn't let go of 18 pairs that I never wore. Yes, I had a DVD collection of over 300 movie titles and most of them I was never going to watch again. I was obsessed with the collection. Somehow it made up for all the things I had lost in every move I was forced to endure in childhood, and in every move I had to make in my adult life for various reasons and choices. Those DVDs were a way for me to cover up the pain of my losses. As long as I had my DVD collection, losing anything else in the past didn't matter. I didn't have to hurt anymore about those losses because I had replaced the loss with something else -- 300 DVDs. They really served no purpose except to cover the pain like a band aid or to hide the pain the way a cat covers their poop in the litter box.

It has taken many years and many losses and many introspections to finally comprehend hoarding and admit that I was a hoarder. Life would not allow me to skate free on this lesson. Perhaps that's why I felt so sorry for the hoarders who suffered from CHD on the show. I knew I was just like them even if my home didn't look as bad as theirs. I knew the same pain that causes the illness. I was doing the same thing they were just to a lesser degree where it was easier to hide in an organized way.

Sometimes there's a lesson that must be learned in life and some of us are too stubborn or set in our ways to learn it the first or even second time that life tries to beat it into us. Though my entire childhood was beset in move after move after move and I could never keep anything for long, I still believed that would change when I was an adult and on my own. Life had tried to teach and prepare me to be a minimalist, but I couldn't believe Life. I thought that once I could make my own decisions, I would be able to keep my cherished nick nacks or whatevers. But the same thing kept happening to me even in my adult life. Move after move after move, and losses after losses after losses. Always another home and a new collection to obsess about -- a new band aid to hide away the emotional boo boos. Life refused to be understanding or merciful about it. Life continued to beat me up with this lesson and it became especially intense the past six years with several severe reminders in "losing everything".

The first "reminder" happened in 2018 I lost everything like dominoes falling down. First my husband was snatched from the scene as he had to return to prison for violation of his probation. Then per my desperate and fear-filled decisions, I lost both of our vehicles. Then I lost my home and everything in it while I sat in jail for my first felony. I call this tragic series of unfortunate events a "reminder" because it was not the first time in my adult life that I had lost everything. I was having flashbacks of the time period of 2001 to 2005, when I had lost my home, my son, and everything we had at that time. What made me think that it was going to be different? What made me think that my adult life would be different than my childhood? What made me think that Life would allow me to keep anything I had earned and acquired?

I don't know. I don't know why I kept trying and trying. But I do understand the recurring nightmare that I had as a child now. I never understood it until now. The nightmare that I kept having as a child was about a tidal wave. The wave was coming towards the shore and my grandmother, my mother, and I were all running to escape the tidal wave. I kept yelling at them "Hurry, Hurry" because they were behind me and the wave was catching up to them faster. First it caught and took my grandmother, then my mother, and I climbed this tall staircase to escape. I would wake up from that nightmare time and time again throughout my childhood and I never knew why it kept haunting me. Now it all makes sense.

My mother was ahead of my grandmother and I was ahead of my mother. The tidal wave was death and it took us in the order of our ages. I climbed the staircase (like in the song Stairway to Heaven) hoping that our dreams and our life work would mean something in the end. But it's all sandcastles. The tidal wave (death) doesn't let us keep or take anything in the end. It doesn't matter how many generations try or try harder. Even in my childhood, Life was trying to warn me and teach me through my subconcious mind.

I've been very stubborn. I kept running and running up that staircase, hoping against every lesson and every odd, that somehow I would get to keep a home and my stuff. But I'll never win this argument with Life. Life was determined to kill the hoarder in me and birth the minimalist.

So after 2018, I had nothing again, and I carried on wondering what Life was going to teach me or show me now that I had nothing. I learned some other lessons, mostly how cruel people are. When Life takes a break from beating the crap out of you, then people begin to. It's pretty harsh. For awhile I began to fill a room in Keansburg with gifts I found for free in nature or any little trinket that I could call sentimental and beautiful. For awhile my little rental room in Keansburg looked beautiful and was satisfying my need for "home" and "having". But one day I had a Bipolar episode, smashed the door knob, and was evicted for doing that. Homeless again.

Back in Florida since the end of 2020, I've been coasting along riding on the generousity of my husband, um, I mean ex-husband. I came back to Florida hoping we could pair up and be the powerful pair we were back in 2015, but that didn't happen. Instead we got divorced last November. I've watched him put the pieces of his broken life together for the past three years. He works his tail off every day. He started with nothing and up until last month it sure looked like he had gotten everything back. A nice home complete with nice furniture, his big tv, his new truck, and all his beloved tools. He seemed content and satisifed with his "come-back". But Life did not agree.

Life decided to teach him the lesson that I struggled to learn. Minimalism. Believe me, I never considered him a hoarder. Until I saw his face after Hurricane Debbie destroyed his home. Yep, the hurricane literally blew the roof off. It came crashing down as the rainwater flooded the home. Almost everything he had worked to achieve was destroyed. This man is one of the strongest men I know. He is not one to break down in front of others. But he broke. He cried. I tried to be strong for him because I knew his pain. It was that look on his face and those tears in his eyes --- that pain that causes the illness of CHD and is also the cure to the illness.

Hoarding is a serious problem and most people don't even know they have the problem. Don't watch an episode of "Hoarders" to compare yourself and see if you're a Hoarder. There are better ways to know. What's your credit score? How many credit cards did you not pay this month? How many lottery tickets did you buy? How many things can you count that are in your home and haven't been looked at, thought about, or used in the past month? That's how you can figure it out. Watching "Hoarders" is just going to make you feel good about being a hoarder without CHD. It's not going to help you become a minimalist.

Why should you be a minimalist? No reason except that there is much less emotional pain and baggage in minimalism versus hoarding. I'm not telling you that you have to be, but based on my experiences it's much easier and wiser. I wouldn't be a minimalist except that Life demanded it of me. I refuse to play that game again with Life. Life was relentless about this lesson and I don't want to learn it anymore. No, I simply won't cover up anymore past pain with another opportunity for future pain. I've learned MY lesson. I'm a recovered hoarder and a proud minimalist. Now Life can teach me some better lessons.